Rohan Needs a Guide 1.0

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• 1.0

I've had a longstanding love/hate relationship with Rohan. I really like them in the books and you can get some great moments playing them in the game, but I get frustrated trying to make a top tier Rohan deck. They just have too many weaknesses. But that doesn't keep me from playing them! I should say this is a multiplayer version of the deck specifically tailored to play along side Elrond's Armory that spams out armor and has an excess of Sentinel defenders so this deck isn't set up well to defend. I'll publish a more suitable solo version of this deck soon.

Why Thurindir?

Rohan has a real weakness in that it has no real access to lore (outside of Grima). With few hitpoints, they need healing, and with disposable allies, they need card draw so Lore seems really helpful to the deck in general. Sidequests are becoming more beneficial for Rohan as well with the Rider of Rohan gaining action advantage through a completed sidequest, the heroes benefiting from increased willpower through their weapons and armor and excellent resource smoothing through The Storm Comes. This all combined to make me choose Thurindir as a good companion for a proper Rohan swarm. If the sidequesting goes well, your heroes can be questing for 20 with a large army of allies to back them up!

Opening Hand

In most cases I would pick Gather Information as your opening sidequest unless you're playing solo. This will let your ally pull an essential card and you can fetch The Storm Comes if it isn't already in your hand. Snowmane is another excellent card to see right away along with Gleowine or a Tactics 2-cost ally you can play on turn 1.

Basic Play

This deck is designed to quest hard from turn 1 an keep building up willpower as it layers in combat ability as well. Try to play at least one ally a turn to get full value out of Theoden's cost reduction. That reduction along with The Storm Comes makes resource management really easy (as far as tri-sphere decks go). Rohan allies are pretty weak when it comes to hitpoints so I included a good number of treachery cancellation effects because global damage treacheries can destroy an army of 1 and 2 hitpoint allies. With 3 Test of Wills, 1 Dwarven Tomb and 3 Halfling Bounders, you should be able to keep a cancel ready most of the time. Defense is thin just because of the companion deck, but Theoden can always take a hit or two and Deorwine and the Warden of Helm's Deep are there for you and they become pretty stout with a Hauberk or Raiment of War. You can always leave a Westfold Horse Breeder up to chump block as well. Attack is covered by either Theoden or Thurindir with a Legacy Blade or two along with help from the Riders of Rohan or the Riddermark Knight. I threw a Horseback Archer in there just to annoy Ryan... Threat starts fairly low but I have 3 Galadhrim's Greeting and Double Back in the deck since there are many threat raising encounter cards in Roam Across Rhovanion and the partner deck starts at 33 threat. If used against a quest with less threat raising effects, you could remove these in favor of some more defensive allies or attachments.

Rohan has been getting cards since the very first cycle but I still think they struggle to make a top notch deck. I enjoyed playing this one against Roam Across Rhovanion and you can watch it in action on YouTube here on Mr Underhill's channel.

Thanks for reading!